4 Resource RoomIMAGECommunity Environment: Gloria Marshall is located on a 16-acre heavily wooded site in Spring Texas. The site orientation of the two-story compact floorplan is situated to have a reduced impact on the site and will retain the majority of the native vegetation. The long sides of the rectangular shaped building face North and South to take advantage of the natural daylight.

5 IMAGE Water CollectionCommunity Environment: Daylight harvesting via light shelves and Solatubes will provide 100% natural daylight to all of the classrooms throughout the school. A rain water catchment system will collect the storm water runoff from the roof for reuse in flushing the toilets; a closed-loop geothermal HVAC system will eliminate central plant equipment; CO2 sensors and demand/control ventilation will eliminate conditioning excessive outside air. All of these features are designed to meet the goal of reducing energy consumption at Gloria Marshall by more than 25%.

6 IMAGE Eco Pond Learning Environment:Adjacent to the school’s main entrance are a science garden and eco-pond that includes an above-ground cistern and a water trough. These can be used to teach students integrated concepts about math and science that allow for real-world experiences. Under the parking lot and playgrounds is a geothermal well field housing a system of tubes and valves that take hot and cold water in and out of the building. Through the use of a web-based learning tool, students will be able to interact with the building systems and know the temperature of the water as it leaves the building and when it returns from deep in the earth.

7 IMAGE Interactive School Learning Environment:Additional green features include a highly reflective white-colored roof; an on-site wind turbine; 10 kilowatts of roof-mounted photovoltaic cells (which will convert sunlight directly into electricity); a butterfly garden along a walking trail; and an underground cistern that will collect rainwater from the roof and be used to flush toilets and urinals. Also, trees from the existing site will be reused in the building as a treehouse, benches and conference room tables. The school will also use less water by having no irrigation, and many of the construction materials were made with recycled content and within 500 miles of the school. These sustainable amenities will allow the school itself to act as a tool for teaching and for learning.

8 IMAGE Classroom Physical Environment -The 105,000 SF, two-story rectangular facility is oriented with long sides facing north and south. Each classroom takes advantage of natural light while the south-facing classrooms take advantage of daylight harvesting allowing each classroom to operate with natural light 75% of the time. Each room has sensors that control the lighting system based on the levels of natural light in the classroom.

9 IMAGE Lobby / Commons Physical Environment –Not only is sustainability and high performance part of the physical building, but it will also be integrated into the curriculum of the school through a web-based interactive learning tool called Vital Signs. In addition to the building, a science garden with an eco pond, a weather station, 10,000 kilowatts of photovoltaic film, a wind turbine, an above ground cistern with sedimentation trough, a butterfly garden, and a vermiculture box can all be used as tools to teach students about natural materials, the environment, and conserving energy.

10 IMAGE Library Planning Process:What initially began as a re-site of an already successful elementary school design resulted in one of the greenest elementary schools in the state of Texas without adding any costs to the district’s capital budget. When SHW Group and Spring ISD first began exploring the goals for the new school, conversations quickly turned to daylighting, energy efficiency and water conservation. This led to an original sustainable, high-performance school designed as a teaching tool that will educate generations of students about resource conservation .

11 IMAGE Main Entrance Planning Process:The school was designed to achieve LEED Gold certification and has already been accepted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to receive an ENERGY STAR rating due to its energy-efficient building design. The building is the first school in Houston to use geothermal heating and cooling, which is expected to save at least 25 percent in energy consumption over the current code.